Hospitals are experiencing a severe shortage of psychiatric nurses. 

Mr Donald Epaalat, chairman of the National Nurses Association, yesterday said Kenya's 1,500 psychiatric nurses could not cope with the number of mental cases in public institutions.

"The current ratio of one nurse for 20 mentally-ill patients is far from the ideal 1:6. My organisation would like every ward in public hospitals to have one psychiatric nurse," he told journalists at the fourth annual scientific conference of mental health nurses at the Professional Centre, Nairobi. 

Dr Epaalat attributed the shortage to apathy among nurses. He urged the Government to improve the psychiatric nurses' working conditions and salaries.

The theme of the two-day conference, attended by hundreds of psychiatric nurses from all parts of the country, has the theme: Violence and Mental Health. 

The Nursing Council of Kenya Registrar Janet Mwamuye said her organisation had introduced the "contentious" retention system in a bid to gauge how nurses were updating their knowledge and skills.

"This is not necessarily by attending workshops, seminars or courses but by updating knowledge and skills in the clinical setting for the provision of quality care service,".

She added: "The system will also assist us to establish and maintain active data on nurses registration enrolment.

"This will not only ensure professional development of all nurses but will also ensure that standards of nursing education and practice are maintained,".

The chairman of the department of psychiatry, University of Nairobi, Dr J. Mburu, who was the chief guest, urged the nurses to discuss the increased cases of violent crime in Kenya.